It's been a while since I've written. Apologies, but it's been a busy time and won't get any less busy for a while.
This past week, we went down to Bellvue (near Seattle) to catch the end of a conference (SAGEEP) and attend a 'field trip' created by our supervisor and coworkers. I say created loosely, because no one knew where we were going to go until the morning of the actual trip. The conference fieldtrip was going to Mt. St Helens (though it was a geophysical conference..not quite sure how that works). However, it was decided that that was too far to go. Mt Rainer was the next option, but it was too snowy. Instead, we found so old fieldtrip guides and settled for our old standby - sections and gravel pits. The picture is from a VERY exciting aggregate pit near Puyllaup (got to love northern washington for those unpronouncable names). For those who care, it's a large deltaic section, probably glaciofluvial, capped by organics from the Olympia non-glacial. There were some TL dates of 1.1 million for sediment near the bottom of a section close by. Isn't that fasinating? I mean, I know I'm geeky and all...but it's 1 million year old dirt! That has to mean something to the uninitiated dirt lovers! That, and it's a really big section. In my study area 2 metres is a large section, and the biggest I have are 50 metres high...so this one is really impressive.
Okay, enough geekiness for now. Just thought you might want to know what we actually do in the gravel pits we visit. Countdown to hand the thesis to the committee.....20 days. Minus 4 for easter, and one for fieldschool orientation, oh and probably 2 for moving....13 days. Yikes, that's the first time I've counted...I think that I should be working right now and not stopping for quite a while. To my parents, yes I'm alive but please don't ask me about my future plans, to my friends - I'm disappearing from contact for the next month, and to the BF....I gotta eat so as long as you keep cooking me dinner I'll still stop by. In the next month I have to:
-remember everything that I learned 3 years ago so I can TA fieldschool
-finish a thesis....one chapter which is only a first draft at this point
-find a place to live
-move
-find a job for september, preferably in the city I'm already in (yes I know I'm living in an unrealistic bubble)
And I must find time to escape to the hills every now and then, to prevent self-inflicted/fluorescent light induced madness.
How do people handle the real world? It isn't moulding to my wishes like I think it should!
The thesis was officially handed in to the committee today. Though slight changes may be necessary, I don't have to worry about it for another month. Having it sitting there, staring at me...really quite a lot of paper for two years work. Now I'm off to fieldschool for two weeks, to play with rocks and stay at the penthouse suite at Strathcona Lodge...they really do things rough out here.
weekend, and a feast of fresh crab caught only hours earlier by one of my diving friends. Complete with garlic butter kept warm by candlelight. Then in the midst of thesis writing, I escaped to the coast with B and some of his friends. Waking up in the sunshine, waves crashing, a little dose of sanity.
